The Hindu : Arts / Dance : Creative expressions

The Hindu : Arts / Dance : Creative expressions

Sanchaari in Cochin & Trichur

Diploma Students Graduate - 20th August 2010

July 1, 2010 - Invitation to Attakkalari

Jayachandran invited for Internationale Tanzmesse NRW - Dusseldorf, Germany

Attakkalari's Artistic Director : Jayachandran Palazhy was invited to the International Visitors Programme “Dance in NRW: internationale tanzmesse nrw” in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany from 25^th August until 29^th of August 2010.

The internationale tanzmesse nrw is a biennial marketplace and festival platform for communicating and networking in the field of contemporary dance. At the tanzmesse, international dance companies and artists present their work live on stage and choreographers, dancers, agencies, presenters and cultural institutions worldwide network and co-operate in a lively marketplace. The internationale tanzmesse nrw also includes a programme of performances, lectures and discussions.

This programme was held in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Contemporary Dance - a Tool for Empowerment Transcending Gender

On August 23rd, Jayachandran Palazhy was invited by the Ladies Study Group (Kolkata) to deliver a talk. He spoke about aspects of creating images in contemporary dance and also addressed how contemporary dance can be used as a tool for empowerment transcending gender.

He was accompanied by Hemabharathy Palani and Diya Naidu - who demonstrated while he spoke. This lecture was held at Satyajit Ray Auditorium at the ICCR premises.

This visit to Kolkata also saw auditions being held for Attakkalari's Diploma in Movement Arts and Mixed Media and we look forward to welcoming students from Kolkata in next year's batch.

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British Council - Global Fellowship Programme

On July 27^th, 10 students from the UK visited Attakkalari for an introduction to contemporary Indian culture and arts. These Global Fellows – Connor, Haydon, Gemma, Frances, Helen, Aoife, Elijah, Jinal, Brook and Philip were accompanied by Mr. Ramesh Veluchamy – Project Manager at British Council, Chennai.

The students gained an overview of Attakkalari through an interactive presentation, then observed a class in the Diploma in Movement Arts and Mixed Media, and had an animated discussion on the relation between culture and politics in India. They ended their visit with a one hour practical movement module in Kalarippayattu.

Performance at Jaaga

In September 2009, Attakkalari was awarded the Robert Bosch Art Grant. Attakkalari was one amongst six recipients chosen for this grant which specifically seeks to support the talent and work of emerging artists. The awardees were selected from various genres including dance, visual arts and theatre. The artists were chosen after a three month rigorous screening of their work and projects. To celebrate the award ceremony the repertory performed in a spectacular site specific piece at the experimental artist space – Jaaga. This piece was specially commissioned for the Robert Bosch Award Ceremony.

Workshop with students from National Institute of Design

From August 24^th to August 29^th, 2009 Attakkalari conducted a special workshop on “Bodies in Space” with students from the New Media department of the National Institute of Design based in Ahmedabad. The workshop was led by Attakkalari's Artistic Director - Jayachandran Palazhy along with faculty and dancers from Attakkalri. The students have shared their reactions below:

“I became more sensitive to the relationship between my body and space – and enjoyed playing with negative and positive spaces.” – Rohini P. Shitole.

“The trust building exercises really helped. I also learnt to explore the floor with my body.” – Shailja Pahuja

“I learnt how motion from daily life can be transformed to dance.” – Kirti Anand

“Working together was never more fun. Understanding each others limitations and learning from one another.” – Pranav Gupta.

“We had never danced as a group, but due to the workshop – we were able to build our confidence as an active group….we realized that Everyone Can Dance.” – Sagar Raut.

Continuing Professional Development for Attakkalari Dancers

The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme is for Attakkalari’s own internationally renowned Repertory Dance Company. Integrating movement, medium and material, CPD aims to provide tools for continuing growth and education to the repertory dancers. The modules will include technique & choreography (Movement); costumes, props (Material); fine art, theatre, film, photography (Medium) amongst other subjects to help enhance the skill set and professional development of the Attakkakari dancers.

During April and May 2009, the repertory at Attakkalari took an array of capacity building workshops as part of the Continuing Professional Development programme for the repertory. These included sessions with Janet Lilly (from the Peck School of the Arts-Department of Dance, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). Lilly focused on Choreographic Approaches – Weaknesses and Problems.

Sine all the repertory dancers are also education outreach facilitators – we invest heavily in our dancers by providing them capacity building. Last year in April and May 2010, the repertory had modules in the use of curriculum material in dance teaching with Shabari Rao, with Raghunandan on dance and theatre techniques. Bangalore based applied theater specialist Maitri Gopalakrishna helped the repertory analyze an experiential session to look at goals and impact, helped them share best practices in the class room, and access one’s teaching styles and principles through articulating and sharing. Education specialist Arzu Mistry helped the repertory develop tools for curriculum development. She addressed “teaching for understanding” and the multiple intelligence theory in her sessions.

(Combining Visual Arts with Performance: Photo Courtesy - Arzu Mistry)

In November, 2009 the repertory trained with Chris Lechner in contact improvisation and began ongoing classes in Classical Ballet with Clare Coleman. In December, 2009 – Ben Riepe the famous German choreographer conducted classes on choreography with the repertory.

In 2010, the repertory has been having ongoing modules in classical ballet, pilates, Bharatanatyam with Minal Prabhu and in the martial art form of Kalarippayattu with Raam Kumar. In May 2010 the Kolkata based duo Ronnie Shambik and Mitul Sengupta Ghosh conducted classes in contemporary Kathak and jazz techniques with the dancers. In May and June, 2010 – Mic Croitoru from Arizona State University in the U.S. conducted body conditioning classes with the dancers. The dancers are currently undergoing sessions with Chris and Christine Lechner in body conditioning, yoga and contact improvisation.

URUVAM Performance June 12th 2010

Young Choreographer's Platform in the news...

Young Choreographers made their presence felt at the Museum of World Culture in Sweden. Read the article here for more news. http://www.culturalentrepreneur.se/2010/03/23/young-choreographers-platform/

For Pina...In Mumbai and Ahmedabad

For Pina... in Hyderabad Photos by Mohammed Yousuf (The Hindu)

For Pina... Review in The Hindu

Site and insight

LEELA VENKATARAMAN

Jayachandran Palazhy's ‘For Pina' provided great visual aesthetics. When Pina Bausch passed away on June 30 last year, the world of Modern Dance lost one of its leading influences which changed the face of how one looked at dance. Entering, in 1955, the Folkwangschule in Essen then directed by Kurt Jooss, one of the founders of German Expressionist Dance, Pina Bausch became the artistic director of the then Wuppertal Opera Ballet which was later renamed Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. Her intense productions were mainly built round human relationships and male-female interaction — a running theme through her work. Between 1979 and 2008, Pina toured India three times.

In memory of this Modern Dance icon, a site-specific promenade performance at Goethe Institute Max Mueller Bhavan, along with a film installation and live music conceived by Jayachandran Palazhy, artistic director of Attakalari Centre for Movement Arts, Bangalore, attracted a number of theatre and dance enthusiasts. Called “For Pina”, Jayachandran's work, which moved from site to site in the Max Mueller Bhavan compound, brought alive the architecture of the site as nothing has ever done before. With dancing on top of and in between short pillars raised side by side, with light and shade effects providing an added dimension, the work had a breathtakingly unique start before moving on to the roof top. Using the fence wall and the cat walk, dancers, alone and in groups, created striking freezes — the dark green of the tall palms reaching up to the roof contrasting with the stark red costumes of the dancers and the lights, all providing visual aesthetics of a high order.

Poised and excellent movers, the dancers never faltered for balance. Action then came to the ground level with the long veranda with large white columns, the portico and the cemented driveway being used as the performance site. Dancers used the full space, their movements at times full of joyous freedom and at others frenetic with excitement as they went up and down the columns. Here and in the next site along the driveway, movement was accompanied by rhythm on the mizhavu — the copper drum — played by V.K. Hariharan of Kalamandalam. The husky sound of the drum beats and the dance in the special sonic environment with cutting edge music by Lorenzo Brusci and Luca Canciello made for an unusual music/dance blend, the language of body movement of the dancers influenced by physical and performing art traditions of India.

Moving scene

The best bit was when Jayachandran danced alone with the “Yoyo”, the sonic module, and then merged into the video patterns on the screen at the back and slowly laid himself down and faded out, disappearing along with the installations — everything there one minute and vanishing into nothingness the next. There was something very moving about this scene without there being any narrative and that the entire audience felt the same was seen in the impromptu applause greeting the end of the scene.

The last bit on the back veranda of the building saw dancers in pairs, and here the male/female duets just through movement evoked feelings of easy friendliness, affection, tenderness, attraction, rejection, violence and what have you. When the female dancers had made an exit into the hall with the closed doors in the rear, with only male dancers on the stage, the final scene with the women framed against the doors that they had opened, was very dramatic. Perhaps this scene more than any other showed the direct influence of Pina Bausch.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu

Date:12/02/2010 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/fr/2010/02/12/stories/2010021250430200.htm

For Pina... Review in Hindu

Dancing the contemporary beat

The dance tribute to Pina Bausch drew stuff from diverse dictionaries

Five men pressed flat against the walls of a distant tomb, unplastering themselves in a wash of pale red light to draw fleeting shapes with their limbs on its facets, before melting into the darkness. The lights then found six women in red, swaying gently, slowly, onto the stone platform of Muhammed Quli Qutub Shah's mausoleum.

So began For Pina, a site-specific promenade performance at the Qutb Shahi tombs, co-produced by the Attakkalari Center, Bangalore and the Goethe Institute in homage to the late German choreographer, Pina Bausch.

The choreography evoked, drew from and then took off from Bausch, to explore a dynamic all its own – making this a far more interesting tribute to the legend. So there were no fields of carnations, no pools of water, and no wooden chairs. Instead, the domed mausoleum of a long-dead Sultan rose from the ground in the dusk, as much a performer as any dancer was, softly lit, darkly shadowed and magnificently regal.

The performance led the audience all around the tomb, its segments set against different walls and terraces. In one of them, the women emerged on a ledge like a row of mermaids on a rock, arching sensually against and away from each other. On another elevated terrace, translucent black sheets billowing in the wind were splashed with bluish-white streaks of light as a dancer moved behind them… and then the spectre of a white-robed Pina glided across it all, her arms stretched up into the air, ephemeral. The space defined the dancer, the dancer defined the space.

The haunting soundscape swelled and withdrew under the night sky from speakers that wouldn't look out of place in a modern art exhibition. That every one of the twelve dancers had contributed to the choreography was evident in their individual expression. There were phrases unique to each, which then formed new strings of movement when two or more dancers came together. It was an expression of the self and an exploration of the other -- joyful, contemplative, intense and personal.

Each of these dancers has had training in Indian classical forms, martial arts and various other international dance styles. The choreography rose from this foundation and drew from it while speaking in a modern tongue. To call it ‘Indo-Western fusion' would be to reduce it to a random coupling of idioms, when in fact it is the emergence of something different and more than the parts. The vocabulary may have been drawn from diverse dictionaries, but the phrasing was unique to the contemporary dancer in India today. Jayachandran Palazhy and his dancers speak this language beautifully.

It seems rather unfair that less that 300 people could be accommodated at the Qutub Shahi Tombs last Tuesday evening. For Pina brought to the city a confident exhibition of modern dance and environmental sound design, while reintroducing us to the majesty of the Seven Tombs.

If ever there was an argument for productions to have longer runs in every city, this would be it!

Keywords: Muhammed Quli Qutub Shah, Attakkalari, contemporary dance, For Pina, Tanztheater, Pina Bausch, Goethe-Zentrum

Printable version | Feb 18, 2010 10:24:22 AM | http://beta.thehindu.com/arts/dance/article101272.ece

© The Hindu

Attakkalari's Chronotopia in Sweden

Attakkalari’s Chronotopia in Germany and Sweden – March 2010

Sunday – March 14^th 2010 – 8:00 PM - Kassel, Germany: International Dance Festival, at Staasts Theater, Schauspielhaus

Wednesday - March 17^th 2010 – 7:30 PM - Vara, Sweden: Varakonserthus

Fri – Sat – Sun – March 26^th – 28^th 2010 – 8:00 PM - Frankfurt, Germany - Künstlerhaus Mousonturm

Review for Chennai show... For Pina...

By Saranya Chakrapani
30 Jan 2010 04:26:00 AM IST

A tribute to pina

CHENNAI: When you pay homage to a legendary, influential artiste like Pina Bausch, you don’t just celebrate her signature style but also showcase an evolved art form that she would have thoroughly enjoyed. It would hence be appropriate to say that ‘For Pina’ the promenade performance co-produced by Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, India and Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, Bangalore, was more a revival of her spirit to explore, rebel and liberate. Spaces, the mystique abode of the late danseuse Chandralekha was the perfect locale for this tribute, considering Chandralekha’s own undying urge to break conventions and use dance as her sole, sacred catharsis.
The venue, known for its aesthetic performing spaces and their silent symbiosis with nature, was the perfect location for a promenade, as the audience, along with the artistes shifted base from time to time as the evening progressed.
The expression was all about unabashed liberation - of the body and the soul— signified by swift, acrobatic movements that revealed hints of diverse dance forms, a generous dose of erotica and music that could haunt you for days to come. It was a melting pot of various sounds - some of which you were familiar with — chimes, beats, voices and extreme pitches— and others that you just couldn’t comprehend.
It however, never once did fail to synchronise with the performers’ sonic trance-like movements and energy. It also drew inspiration from traditional Indian movements and the common features of a promenade. A part of the performance had live music too — cutting-edge and flawlessly performed.
While the frenzied movements of these young men and women, clad in sensuously simple red and black, were open to interpretation, they did seem to evocate the less significant moments of our life.
The ones that we tend to overlook, emotions we are often too occupied to pay heed to and errs we could do away with.
Pina Bausch, the legendary German performer who passed away in June last year would have indeed appreciated this.

© Copyright 2008 ExpressBuzz

For Pina...5 City Tour in India

Performance Credits:

Artistic Direction: Jayachandran Palazhy

Choreography: Jayachandran Palazhy along with the dancers

Performers: Hema Bharathy Palani, Diya Naidu, Jyotsna Rao, Remya K.N., Keya Ann D’ Souza, Sahiba Singh, Raamkumar Ravikumar, Denny Paul, Ajeesh K.B., Sumesh V.M., and Santhosh V.S.

Music Composition & Live Electronics: Lorenzo Brusci

Additional Composition & Live Electronics: Luca Canciello

Live Percussion: Kalamandalam V.K. Hariharan

Vocals: Sumathy Murathy

Video Installation: Chris Ziegler

Lighting Design & Execution: Shymon Chelad

Costume Design: Sonali Sattar | Himanshu Dimri

Photography: Sheetal Jain

Technical Coordination: Transmedia Technologies

Performance Management: Shiva Pathak

The sound modules are sponsored by Architettura Sonora, Applied Acoustics a division of B&C Speakers.

Site Specific Performance to be followed by a film screening of “Pina Bausch” by Anne Linsel (2006).

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Performance Dates:

28.1.2010: Chennai – Spaces, Elliot Beach

30.1.2010: Bangalore –Ranga Shankara

2.2.2010: Hyderabad - Qutb Shahi Tombs

5.2.2010: Delhi – Max Mueller Bhavan, K.G.

8.2.2010: Kolkata – Uma, 2/4 A Sarat Bose Road

Chronotopia at National School of Drama - Bharat Rang Mahotsav

Photo by Chris Ziegler

· Bhopal - Sunday, January 17^th, 6:00 PM: Antarang Theatre, Bharat Bhavan

· New Delhi - Tuesday, January 19^th, 9:30 PM: Abhimanch Theatre, NSD Campus

Duration: 60 Minutes

CHRONOTOPIA: Dance Theatre Production

Inspired by the famous Tamil epic, Chilapathikkaram, Attakkalari’s multi-media dance theatre production takes the audience through an episodic journey traversing layers of temporal and physical locations that often defy conventional notions of space and chronology. It oscillates between memory and experience, and explores human predicament in a time of rapid changes. Classical Tamil poetry often employs a narrative style that establishes a connection between the landscape and the emotional as well as spiritual mind set of the characters, creating a geography of mind and imagination. Inspired by this idea, CHRONOTOPIA attempts to create a complex nonlinear dramaturgy by placing deliberately stylized physical movements in a digitally constructed and changing stage architecture. These physical movements are abstractions of images derived from contemporary experiences, imagination and memories, organized to create a sensorial journey that is without chronology.

Borders collapse, when images from ordinary human existence – childhood, friendship, marriage, motherhood, conflict and death – encounter the intervention of inexplicable forces that alter life and catapult it out of orbit.

Anchoring on a central female character represented by three dancers, the piece journeys through rural, urban, historical, contemporary and even mythical contexts. In the process, time dissolves and dislocates, infusing the landscape with tenderness and loss.

Abstract movement vocabulary for the piece is created through improvisation, drawing on images and events from contemporary life as well as imagined historical and mythical situations. These movement phrases are further developed using principles and aesthetics of Indian physical and performance traditions resulting in a rooted yet vibrant, composite yet distilled sensorial narrative.

Performed by Attakkalari’s uniquely talented Repertory dancers, the language itself is an embodiment of the human circumstance.

Highly translucent traces of projected images by Chris Ziegler, complemented by an abstracted light installation by Chris Salter and Marje Baalman, create an interactive context for the evocative highlighted by Thomas Dotzler’s restrained light design. Intricate choreography by Jayachandran Palazhy (along with the dancers) is set to an original, vibrant and melodic score by French composer Mathias Duplessy, (created in collaboration with Carnatic musicians from Bangalore).

Emotional, haunting and introspective, CHRONOTOPIA is an ode to the senses, a magical tour de force through the voyage of life.

Credits :

Artistic Direction : Jayachandran Palazhy

Choreography : Jaychandran Palazhy, along with the dancers.

Interactive Scenography: Chris Salter | Chris Ziegler

Interaction research/design (light): Marije Baalman | Chris Salter

Interaction design (video) : Chris Ziegler

Lighting Design : Thomas Dotzler

Music Composition & Production : Mathias Duplessy

Lighting programming: Marije Baalman

Lighting system design: Elio Bidinost | Harry Smoak

Sensing research/development : Joseph Malloch | Marije Baalman | Rodolfe Koholy

Costume Design: Jason Cheriyan & Anshu Arora of Hidden Harmony

Male vocals: Shri Balasubramaniam Sharma/ Mathias Duplessy

Female vocals : Neela Ramanujam

Mridangam : B.C Manjunath

Nadaswaram : M. Kodandaram

Physical Performers: Hemabharathy Palani, Sumesh V.M., Denny Paul Machampilly, Diya Naidu, Jyotsna Baleshwar Rao.

Director’s Note – by Jayachandran Palazhy

I have grown up hearing numerous versions of the Tamil epic poem Chilapathikaram (The Anklet’s Tale). The recent tumultuous changes in the world prompted me to reach out to creative collaborators (choreographers, digital artists, composers and dancers) to together imagine another version of this age old story. We attempted to explore imagined notions of time and space which went beyond specificities. We aspired to use symbiotic residues of personal memories and experiences particularly dealing with a sense of loss.

Using another aspect of theatre – the sensorial narrative - this production undertook to weave together movement, sound and visuals, using a contemporary sensibility. The movement language aimed to experiment with the varied spaces (macro and micro) embedded in Indian performative and physical traditions. The interactive scenography alluded itself to the concept of landscape in the poem Chilapathikaram - where the character’s interior feelings are mirrored in the external landscape (“thinai”). By trying to incorporate inherited cultural memories and emerging technology, we hope that this production has contributed to broadening the scope of movement theatre.

Jayachandran Palazhy is an internationally sought after dancer, choreographer and Artistic Director of Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts in Bangalore, India. He is trained in India in the dance forms of Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Indian folk dance and Kalarippayattu (martial art), and in the UK, in Contemporary dance at the London Contemporary Dance School. He has also studied Ballet, Tai Chi, Capoeira and African Dance and has toured widely in India as well as internationally.

He works extensively as a consultant in different parts of the world and is at the forefront of the contemporary South Asian movement arts scene. In addition, he has participated in artistic residencies internationally, presented papers and lecture demonstrations on subjects related to movement arts, and been the recipient of several awards.

His work often involves digital and interactive technology and he has collaborated with some of the most celebrated artists of this genre. He also directs Attakkalari Bangalore Biennial (international festival of dance and digital arts) and FACETS (an international choreography laboratory).

Past Reviews:

“It was artfully choreographed in its various portrayals. The dance ballet does not adhere to a sequential or linear narrative to convey a story, but rather it has been evoked from the performer’s memory….the play somehow leaves a mark on the audience. The play only proved that the beauty of storytelling in abstract is more challenging to the performers and the audience and adds depth to the experience of the performance.”

- In “Beyond Time and Space” By Madhuri Kalyan, Deccan Herald, Bangalore – February 13^th, 2009

Additional Press Clips:

- “Spring Dance” in India Today’s Simply Bangalore Magazine – February Issue, 2009

- “A Women Scorned” The New Indian Express, Chennai – February 13^th, 2009

- “ The New Dance Movement” in The Hindu, Metro Plus – February 14^th, 2009

- “Technology at the Feet” in “Expresso”, Chennai – February 15^th, 2009

- “A New Idiom” in The Hindu, Chennai – February 18^th, 2009

Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, Repertory Company

Committed to developing a context for contemporary cultural expressions - particularly in the performance arts –Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts– is an umbrella organization for dance and digital arts. Attakkalari enables collaborations in an international context through residencies and training opportunities, working towards developing a contemporary “South Asian body.”

Currently based in Bangalore, India and led by its Artistic Director – Jayachandran Palazhy, Attakkalari has a wide range of activities and interests. These activities include Education Outreach, a Diploma in Movement Arts & Mixed Media, Research & Documentation, an International Contemporary Dance Festival, Technical Solutions and a Repertory Company

Attakkalari’s Repertory Company has evolved a unique movement language and is at the forefront of interdisciplinary performance works in India. Drawing sustenance from India’s immense wealth of performance traditions, Attakkalari’s work is electrifyingly energetic and contemporary reflecting the vibrancy of today’s Indian society. The Repertory Company tours widely in India and abroad, performing and receiving acclaim from audience and critics alike.

Website www.attakkalari.org